How Green Becomes Wood

Dark sat perfectly still, chatting amicably with Alec. Occasionally Daizi stopped in, but mostly she left the two of them to spend time alone with each other. Really, Dark was fine to talk about anything, even when it did hit Alec's interests, since Alec was one of his interests. He watched his son work uncritically, his eyes sometimes drifting to his somewhat crooked finger. It was such an old injury he had stopped noticing it much, but after his interview he had begun to see it again.
 
Finally, Alec ran out of things to do. He only had ten minutes left on his allotted hour, so he sat chatting for a bit longer before standing to clean up. "Lunch time, Ba! And then Mama gets you, and you're free until time to get ready for dinner. Enjoy!"
 
"You have a daughter?" Alec asked, pretending to be shocked. Then he grinned. "Thanks! I'm glad you like them. And, well, I didn't want to hog your time, and Cander knows he tends to try to shorten things because he worries about taking up too much time. So, designated amounts of time to not stress you out and be fair to all three of us! With Ivy getting the most time, of course."
 
"Nobody 'hogs' my time," Dark promised, "And Ivy will appreciate not being forced to spend only a small amount of time with me, she is a bit too small to understand the plan. It was smart to do this," he nodded towards the manicure stuff, "while she napped."
 
"We would blink and she would be coated head to toe in it," Dark agreed, "And so would half of the furniture in the room, despite the bottles not seeming to have enough polish to cover that much."
 
"I will see you then," Dark said, getting up and heading to the kitchen where his wife was preparing lunch for everyone. "Would you like some help, Spider?"

"I don't think you're supposed to on your birthday," Daizi teased, turning around to face him, leaning against the counter.

"What if it is what I like to do best?" He asked, standing with both of his palms on the countertop on either side of her, but not actually touching her.
 
After allowing themselves a few moments of fun, Daizi gently pushed Dark away, saying she did need to eventually finish lunch. Although Dark playfully pouted a little bit, he let her free and then actually did step in to help her.
 
Alec peeked into the kitchen. Seeing Dark and Daizi not in any kind of embrace, he turned back and called for Xander. "It's time for food!" Then he bounced into the kitchen. "Looks good!"

Xander came in cautiously and looked around. "Seems safe now," he remarked quietly.
 
That time Xander's quip went unheard and Daizi set the food out while Dark took his seat. Despite him normally waiting until everyone else had their food before taking his own, this time Daizi demanded he get what he liked first. Of course, he still argued this somewhat, but then did as he was told. He couldn't not argue, though, it made the food taste better if he did.
 
Alec chattered happily with his parents and brother, eating his usual share and more as he pried details out of Xander about what he'd done with Dark. Xander refused to give up the unicorn detail, but he did say they had sanded. And sanded. And sanded!
 
Since Xander refused to mention the unicorn, Dark also remained silent on it, although he was surprised to learn it was a secret. He still didn't end up speaking much, but was content to listen to everyone else.
 
After lunch, the twins insisted on cleaning up with Alec shooing Daizi and Dark out of the kitchen. They cleaned up and made certain it was up to Dark's standards before drifting off and leaving their parents and little sister to their own devices.
 
Despite normally wanting to help clean up, in this instance Dark and Daizi agreed to let the twins handle it so they can spend a bit of time together while they let Ivy play. They always tried to give her some independent playtime before she inevitably demanded they play with her, and soon enough they were both sitting on the floor with their toddler playing games.
 
When Alec came to play, Ivy excitedly exclaimed, "Ack!!!" and toddled over to give him a big hug. Whereas everyone else was conscientious about each other's time, Ivy only saw more people to play with her. In her worldview, there was no such thing as butting in, at least not in a negative sense!
 
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